Optical arbitrary waveform generation (OAWG) is a technique where a photonic device is programmed to create the desired output as an optical waveform which has an arbitrary modulation format that is user specified on demand. Typically this is done from a purely electronic approach, which is limited in bandwidth. OAWG has a wide range of potential and emerging military and commercial applications.
The past approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not to be considered prior art to the claims in this application merely due to the presence of these approaches in this background section.